On Jan. 15, hackers breached the internal network of Zappos.com and made off with private account information belonging to the online shoe retailer's 24 million customers. Less than 48 hours later, the first lawsuit was filed: a class action suit seeking compensation from Zappos (and its parent company, Amazon) for damages to the affected customers.

The growing threat of identity theft and the high costs associated with a data breach are making contractors increasingly aware of the importance of robust network security and data breach controls, but many contractors do not realize that their vendors’ data security protocols are equally important.